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Breviceps Gibbosus
The cape rain frog or giant rain frog (''Breviceps gibbosus'') is a species of frog in the family Brevicipitidae. Adults grow up to 45 mm in length. It was the first African frog species to be scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, under the name ''Rana gibbosa''. It is the most common and largest of rain frogs. The name "rain frog" that is applied to the genus refers to a belief that these frogs bring rain. Distribution and habitat The species is endemic to South Africa, where it occurs in the far southwestern Cape, in Cape Town and northwards as far as Citrusdal. In this area it inhabits Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation, known as fynbos, renosterveld, pastureland on farms, rural gardens, and even urban areas. It seems to adapt well to suburban gardens, but like most frog species it is vulnerable to herbicide poisons and domestic pets. Physiology ''Breviceps gibbosus'' is part of the family Brevicipitidae. All species in this family of frog are consid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brevicipitidae
Brevicipitidae or rain frogs is a small family of frogs found in eastern and southern Africa. As of 2020 contains 37 species in 5 genera. eb application 2013. Berkeley, CaliforniaBrevicipitidae AmphibiaWeb, available at http://amphibiaweb.org/. (Accessed: 30 November 2013). Formerly included as subfamily in Microhylidae (narrow-mouth frogs), phylogenetic research has indicated the brevicipitine frogs should be considered as a family with Hemisotidae (shovelnose frogs) as the most closely related sister taxon. Most adult brevicipitine frogs are not easily seen as they spend extended periods of time in soil or leaf litter. However, some species might be partly arboreal at times. Many species show strong sexual size dimorphism, with females being much larger than males. At least the frogs in ''Breviceps'' and ''Probreviceps'' genera breed by direct development, in which small froglets emerge from eggs without intervening aquatic tadpole A tadpole is the larval stage in the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as . Linnaeus was born in Råshult, the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published the first edition of his ' in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Cape
The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020. About two-thirds of these inhabitants live in the metropolitan area of Cape Town, which is also the provincial capital. The Western Cape was created in 1994 from part of the former Cape Province. The two largest cities are Cape Town and George. Geography The Western Cape Province is roughly L-shaped, extending north and east from the Cape of Good Hope, in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It stretches about northwards along the Atlantic coast and about eastwards along the South African south coast (Southern Indian Ocean). It is bordered on the north by the Northern Cape and on the east by the Eastern Cape. The total land area of the province is , about 10.6% of the country's total. It is roughly the size of England or the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amphibians Described In 1758
Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems. Thus amphibians typically start out as larvae living in water, but some species have developed behavioural adaptations to bypass this. The young generally undergo metamorphosis from larva with gills to an adult air-breathing form with lungs. Amphibians use their skin as a secondary respiratory surface and some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs and rely entirely on their skin. They are superficially similar to reptiles like lizards but, along with mammals and birds, reptiles are amniotes and do not require water bodies in which to breed. With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often ecological indicators; in recent decades there has been a dramatic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemic Amphibians Of South Africa
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breviceps
''Breviceps'' is a genus of frogs in the family Brevicipitidae. Species in the genus ''Breviceps'' are commonly known as rain frogs or short-headed frogs. They occur in arid to semiarid climates of East Africa and Southern Africa. Taxonomy The genus ''Breviceps'' consists of 20 species, of which most occur in southern Africa. There are five species found in the Western Cape, '' B. gibbosus'', '' B. fuscus'' (black rain frog), '' B. rosei'' (Rose's rain frog), '' B. montanus'' (mountain rain frog) and '' B. acutirostris'' (strawberry rain frog). Two species are found in arid areas and other species are found in the eastern and northern parts of southern Africa. Description Species of the genus ''Breviceps'' are sexually dimorphic: males are much smaller than females. This prevents normal amplexus; instead, males and females produce an adhesive secretion from the skin that allows them to "stick" together during mating. Ecology and behaviour Species of the genus ''Breviceps'' sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helderberg Nature Reserve
Helderberg Nature Reserve is a nature reserve in Somerset West, South Africa. This nature reserve is located on the southern slopes of the Helderberg mountains. Its 398 ha consist mostly of “Kogelberg Sandstone Fynbos” (a highly species-rich vegetation type) with smaller patches of “Boland Granite Fynbos” and “Southern Afrotemperate Forest”. Altogether about 600 species of plant have been recorded here, including a wide range of Proteaceae, proteas. Particularly prominent plants include the Leucospermum, pincushion proteas (''Leucospermum'' sp.), cone bushes (''Leucadendron'' sp.), Protea, sugar bushes (''Protea'' sp.), Ericaceae, heaths (''Ericaceae, Erica'' sp.) and the waboom tree (''Protea nitida''). Animals that can be found here include the Cape leopard, caracal, grey duiker, Cape grysbok, steenbok, mongoose, Chersina angulata, angulate and Homopus, padloper tortoises and over 170 species of bird. The reserve has a picnic area, gift shop, Environmental Educatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Peninsula National Park
Table Mountain National Park, previously known as the Cape Peninsula National Park, is a national park in Cape Town, South Africa, proclaimed on 29 May 1998, for the purpose of protecting the natural environment of the Table Mountain Chain, and in particular the rare fynbos vegetation. The park is managed by South African National Parks. The property is included as part of the UNESCO Cape Floral Region World Heritage Site. The park contains two well-known landmarks: Table Mountain, for which the park is named; and the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwestern extremity of Africa. History Arguments for a national park on the Cape Peninsula, centred on Table Mountain, began in earnest in the mid-1930s. The Table Mountain Preservation Board was set up in 1952, and in 1957 its recommendation to the National Monuments Board was accepted and Table Mountain was declared a national monument. In the mid 1960s, the Cape Town City Council declared nature reserves on Table Mountain, Lion' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. The history of agriculture began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture in the twentieth century came to dominate agricultural output, though about 2 billion people still depended on subsistence agriculture. The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials (such as rubber). Food classes include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, cooking oils, meat, milk, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urban Sprawl
Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growth in many urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning. In addition to describing a special form of urbanization, the term also relates to the social and environmental consequences associated with this development. Medieval suburbs suffered from loss of protection of city walls, before the advent of industrial warfare. Modern disadvantages and costs include increased travel time, transport costs, pollution, and destruction of the countryside. The cost of building urban infrastructure for new developments is hardly ever recouped through property taxes, amounting to a subsidy for the developers and new residents at the expense of existing property taxpayers. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat Loss
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby reducing biodiversity and species abundance. Habitat destruction is the leading cause of biodiversity loss. Fragmentation and loss of habitat have become one of the most important topics of research in ecology as they are major threats to the survival of endangered species. Activities such as harvesting natural resources, industrial production and urbanization are human contributions to habitat destruction. Pressure from agriculture is the principal human cause. Some others include mining, logging, trawling, and urban sprawl. Habitat destruction is currently considered the primary cause of species extinction worldwide. Environmental factors can contribute to habitat destruction more indirectly. Geological processes, climate change, introdu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, and education. IUCN's mission is to "influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable". Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to sustainable development in its projects. IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation. It tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice and through building partnerships. The organization is best known to the wider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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